During the Southern soaring season in 1988/89 Hans-Werner Grosse and his wife Karin shipped their ASH 25 to Australia to explore the fifth continent by glider. Remember, this was well before the private use of GPS, well before flying with sustainers and well before OLC documentation! However the Grosse’s had a camera and so were…
The 2014 SSA Convention ended Sunday, March 2nd with the traditional SSA Awards Banquet. U.S. Team pilot Garrett Willat presided as Master of Ceremonies. Jim Payne delivered an exceptional and inspiring keynote address on “The Joys of Soaring,” accompanied by a beautiful slide show, in which he reminded us of the breadth and depth of…
March 2; the meteorological spring has started here and autumn down-under!!! What happened last week in “our” world? Most soaring activities are around this time of the year mainly in Australia, even when the meteorological autumn has started over there yesterday! The first week on the border of NSW and Victoria has still temperatures in…
I’m a glider pilot and the designer of a camera gimbal system for Sebastian Kawa’s Everest gliding event. I think some details of its construction and operation might interest Café readers.
If you can attend the 2014 SSA Convention in Reno, we strongly encourage you to do so, but if you can’t, we’ll try our best to be your surrogate eyes and ears. Our convention coverage begins Thursday, February 27th, so follow us on Twitter @SoaringCafe or watch for our daily (and hourly) reports on FaceBook. Longer posts will appear later on the Café website
Thanks to reader John Koch for recommending this video. Released on February 18th, it features spectacular videos of world champion Sebastian Kawa soaring an ASH-25Mi over the Himalayas.
A few days ago, probably while in the United States Gordon and Hugh were preparing for their next long downwind dash from Minden, I received an e-mail note from Poland: The Kawa-Team is busy preparing their next trip to the Himalayas where in November 2013 they had fought the elements to be the first sailplane…
Last week I promised you to see if I could get some more details from the 81 year old pilot Cal, who made his first solo flight in a glider from Chilhowee. Cal was very helpful, so was Sarah. Thank you both for sharing!!!!! Cal and Sarah. Here is the story of the ” new…
l would like to present a few photos and a technical description of a powered glider that my colleagues and I have developed over the past 20 months. The glider is designed so that it meets Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) Part 103 -Ultralight Vehicles.
Your Café editors recently received an inquiry from a Condor simulator pilot (Larry), who needed advice on how to maintain a stable position during aerotow, so we asked our Condor experts, Scott Manley and Frank Paynter, to respond to the frustrated Condor pilot.
